


enough to survive

by alinaandalion



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alinaandalion/pseuds/alinaandalion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophie turns into Annie Kroy out of necessity.  Set in the same 'verse as Turn & Turn Again a couple of years in the future of where it leaves off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	enough to survive

This is who she is now.  She chose it, but there wasn’t really any choice.  
  
She’s come to accept it; Sophie Devereaux is a thing of the past, a shelved identity that will collect dust until this is all over.  It’s not that she wants this.  She misses being Sophie with every fiber of her being because that is the woman who loves Nate, who loves her team, will do anything for them.  
  
The reasons she’s here now, actually, so it’s mostly a circular track of reasoning; like a mouse on a wheel, except that she knows there could have been something better.  
  
But, for now she’s Annie Kroy.  They still call her Sophie because they don’t really understand the changes.  Eliot sees the difference, though, but he only worries because there are blood stains on his fingers, too, and threats hanging over his head and drugs in his system.  Hardison doesn’t notice anything at all anymore, not even Parker, and Parker avoids Sophie and Eliot, but Sophie doesn’t know if that’s fear or just what these people have done to her.  
  
And Nate plans and gives orders, but he’s broken now, more than ever before, because he watched it all happen and couldn’t do anything.  Trapped in his own nightmares, and she _can’t_ help him.  Doesn’t remember how and wouldn’t be allowed, regardless.  
  
She’s so lonely, and she shouldn’t be because Annie spends half her time in Christopher’s bed, pleasuring him and planning his slow, slow death.  The rest she spends grifting just like before, but there is a lot more carnage left in her wake this time around.  
  
The ones she is sent after never see it coming.  A short skirt, a smile, and the suggestion of sex, and she has another one trapped.  Sometimes it ends with Eliot on the other side of the door with quick, ruthless hands or a knife.  Sometimes she slips poison into a glass of wine; she’s rarely allowed to use her gun, but she prefers it.  The metal cold and heavy and gleaming in her hand, the recoil against her palm, and at least they get the chance to see death coming for them.  
  
She dreams of them sometimes.  The dead bodies come back to life with pale faces and garish red smiles, whispering to her, holding her down; she can’t count them anymore.  Maybe she could if she cared, but she’s Annie Kroy.  Everything is only a means to an end, she’s the only one who matters, and she will always win.  Sophie would care, and Sophie would be insane.  
  
This is necessary; this is what the others need from her.  Being Annie means keeping Eliot, Hardison, Parker, and Nate safe.  It’s the deal she made so long ago to keep from losing her way in a fog of drugs that would make the decision for her anyway.  
  
But she still makes the choice, and the one she’s made isn’t the right one.  It is her decision, the choice she takes, though, and that is what matters more.  
  
She hopes it does, at least.  And maybe she’ll be Sophie again.  One day.  When this is over.  When she remembers; or maybe when she can forget.  



End file.
